Communities

Virtual Community A virtual community is a community of people sharing common interests, ideas, and feelings over the Internet or other collaborative networks.The term virtual community is attributed to the book of the same title by Howard Rheingold published in 1993.

The first online community:
The first example, known as The WELL, began with a meeting between Brilliant and Stewart Brand, then editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, an early green-living manual.

Online communities

Community -- from a sociological perspective
we can not see a whole community, we can not touch it, we can not directly experience it, a community may come in one of many shapes, sizes, colours, and locations. a community is not people who are in it. a community usually was already existing when all of its current resident were not yet born, and it will likely continue to exist when all of the people in it  have left. It is something that beyond its component, its members and its residents. a community in some senses may not have a physical location, but be demarcated by a group of people with a common interest.
http://www.scn.org/cmp/whatcom.htm